Last week, on the heels of anti-torture panels and protests in Portland, Washington DC, and elsewhere, the Justice Department told the nation that it would have to wait a few more days before information about American torture policies and practices is made public. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, and other groups calling for increased accountability (any accountability at all, really) are hoping a CIA inspector general report will offer answers and help to galvanize public opinion about the treatment of terrorism suspects in American custody following September 11, 2001.

Meanwhile, the Senate passed a bill last week banning release of photos that show alleged detainee abuse. Anti-torture advocates say that government officials — including President Barack Obama — are publicly shying away from addressing the truths of torture: how it happened here, its ramifications (both practical and social-moral), and how to prevent it in the future.

"The president's notion that we can look forward without looking back is false," says Ben Wizner, an attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project. "It's a political decision predicated on the complacency of progressives who care about rule of law," Wizner continues, referring to people who voted for Obama and are likely to care about this issue, yet haven't spoken up loud enough. "If we don't make clear that this is a top priority, then this message will not be heard."

Wizner, along with three other activists, spoke at the First Parish Church last week as part of National Torture Awareness Month.

Pushing for accountability — namely, a "commission of inquiry" charged with addressing torture practices — "really has to do with my grandkids," Reverend Richard Kilmer, executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said in an interview before the event. "I want them to grow up in a country that does not torture. The past is very necessary to understand ... so that this does not happen again."

Kilmer, along with Wizner, author and former US interrogator Matthew Alexander, and Tom Parker of Amnesty International, all agree that the Obama administration is not looking hard enough at the torture practices signed off on and perpetrated by American officials and soldiers. They support the creation of an independent commission, not only to prosecute soldiers who violated the Geneva Conventions, but also to publicly acknowledge that those violations took place.

"Laws are meaningless unless they're enforced," Parker said, pointing out that prosecution (of those who tortured, and of those who allowed or instructed them to) is "only one piece" of accountability.

Such a commission would "set the example that torture is not tolerated within the American military," Alexander said — which he believes would lead to a sharp decrease in terrorist recruitment.

While the president isn't yet amenable to the idea of such a commission, Kilmer has not lost hope. He and other religious leaders, including Eric Smith of the Maine Council of Churches, met in early June with White House officials. By the time they left, they'd scheduled future appointments. "If they had no interest in having their minds changed, that wouldn't have happened," Kilmer said.

Voters in Maine, Parker added, are uniquely positioned to make an impact on this issue, given that one of our moderate Republican senators, Olympia Snowe, sits on the US Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, and the other, Susan Collins, sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Screams from solitary The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.

Elena Kagan’s shaky record As a potential Obama nominee for Supreme Court justice, Elena Kagan has liberal bona fides and the likely support of the right. But if her record is any indication, she’s more likely to side with the conservative bloc on matters of executive power and war-time presidential authority.

On doctors, psychologists, and torture Last year, Physicians for Human Rights used government papers to document that CIA doctors and psychologists participated in the conception and monitoring of the agency's infamous torture regime at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and other detention centers.

An all-seeing eye for the FBI? The latest Boston Phoenix is spread across your steering wheel. You're reading this article. In a legal parking spot. With the engine off. A transportation cop zaps your license plate with a computerized scanner, cycles your registration through the system, and records the time and position of your car.

Pot patients could be out in the cold Mainers who live in federally subsidized low-income housing and legally use marijuana to ease symptoms of chronic conditions may find themselves forced to choose between their shelter and their medicine, if a new Maine State Housing Authority (MSHA) policy stays in place.

Tapley racks up another award Portland Phoenix contributing writer Lance Tapley, who has covered conditions in the Maine State Prison and throughout the state's corrections system since 2005, will be honored by the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for "outstanding advocacy for prison reform."

ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE | July 24, 2014 When three theater companies, all within a one-hour drive of Portland, choose to present the same Shakespeare play on overlapping dates, you have to wonder what about that particular show resonates with this particular moment.

CHECKING IN: THE NEW GUARD AND THE WRITER'S HOTEL | July 11, 2014 Former Mainer Shanna McNair started The New Guard, an independent, multi-genre literary review, in order to exalt the writer, no matter if that writer was well-established or just starting out.

NO TAR SANDS | July 10, 2014 “People’s feelings are clear...they don’t want to be known as the tar sands capitol of the United States."